Despite Strength, Cuomo’s Re-election Bid Is Hardly a Coronation

He has been snubbed by unions representing teachers and state workers. Editorial boards are skewering him. Political rivals are lobbing attacks from his left and his right.

A year ago, it looked as though Labor Day would mark the start of Andrew M. Cuomo’s smooth glide toward a second term as New York’s governor.

Now, Mr. Cuomo’s bid for re-election seems to have become more of a chore than a coronation.

Mr. Cuomo is expected to easily fend off a long-shot challenge by a law professor, Zephyr Teachout, in the Democratic primary next Tuesday. In November, his matchup against a Republican, Rob Astorino, the Westchester County executive, could wind up one of the most lopsided elections for governor in the country.

Instead of a nail-biting political contest, this year’s race has produced something else: months of grievances by union members, gun owners, liberal activists and others unhappy about Mr. Cuomo’s time in office.

“Under our form of government, when people are dissatisfied, they don’t grab you, pull you out and shoot you,” said Representative Charles B. Rangel, a Democrat. “They just wait and wait and wait, knowing that sooner or later you’re going to be coming to them saying you want their support, and this is when they get their best political shot.”

Still, the drumbeat of criticism is unwelcome for Mr. Cuomo, whose aides toil endlessly to extinguish criticism of their boss. The daily denunciations are perhaps even more unwelcome because there is little Mr. Cuomo can do to combat them, lest he raise the profile of his political rivals.

At the same time, interviews with Democratic officeholders, labor leaders and political operatives suggest Mr. Cuomo’s unhappy days may be just that — a period of disquietude that will ultimately be overshadowed by a landslide victory in November.

“Would you rather not go through it? Of course you wouldn’t,” said Keith L. T. Wright, a state assemblyman from Harlem and the chairman of the Democratic Party in Manhattan. “But it’s a cost of doing business.”

Mr. Wright predicted Mr. Cuomo would emerge unscathed from his two electoral challenges. “It’s almost like a mosquito buzzing in your ear,” he said. “The question is, do you get the can of Raid or Off! and spray him? Or do you get the rolled-up piece of newspaper and smack him away? I think it’s a nuisance, because I don’t think either candidate is really up to his level.”

There is also the possibility that Mr. Cuomo’s running mate, Kathy Hochul, could lose the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor to Tim Wu, who is running with Ms. Teachout.

Amid the broadsides from his opponents, Mr. Cuomo is staying quiet, while dipping into his ample campaign fund to pay for television advertisements pummeling Mr. Astorino. Mr. Cuomo and the state Democratic Party spent more than $5 million on TV ads in July and August; Mr. Cuomo has also benefited from a deluge of state-funded ads meant to attract businesses to New York.

“I feel good about the record of accomplishment for the state,” Mr. Cuomo told reporters at the West Indian American Day Parade in Brooklyn on Monday, where he waved a fistful of Caribbean flags while his supporters handed out “Caribbeans for Cuomo” signs. Mr. Cuomo, covered in sweat, cited his four on-time budgets and the state’s job growth, as well as the legalization of same-sex marriage and tighter gun control laws.

“We got this state government working again, and we got the state on the right track, and that is inarguable,” he said. “And we’re going to run on the strength of what we’ve done, and our plans to do even more.”

Ms. Teachout, who also marched in the parade, said she ran into the governor, said hello and shook his hand. “I asked him if he was planning to debate,” she said, “and he turned away.”

By the numbers, Mr. Cuomo has little to worry about. Almost eight in 10 Democratic voters had a favorable view of him in a statewide Quinnipiac University poll conducted last month; a vast majority of Democratic voters did not know enough about Ms. Teachout to form an opinion about her.

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Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio working the crowd on Monday in Brooklyn.CreditDamon Winter/The New York Times

“I don’t know of any one individual who has come up to me and said, ‘Hey, what about that primary on the Democratic ticket?’ ” Mark C. Poloncarz, the Erie County executive, said.

But in political circles, and in newspapers across the state, the mere existence of the primary has provided a platform for those with complaints about Mr. Cuomo.

On social media, the anti-Cuomo sentiment has been apparent.

Last week, Bill Mahoney, a researcher for the New York Public Interest Research Group, examined about 1,200 messages posted on Twitter that expressed a position about the candidates for governor; only 12 of them, or 1 percent, said something in support of Mr. Cuomo.

Without Mr. Cuomo’s making a case for himself — the latest news on his campaign website is more than two months old — much of the discussion about the race has focused on his detractors. Mr. Cuomo has been criticized on issues including his noncommittal stance on hydraulic fracturing and his decision to shut down an anticorruption panel, the Moreland Commission.

The state chapters of the Sierra Club and the National Organization for Women endorsed Ms. Teachout, as did The Nation magazine. The editorial board of The New York Times declined to make an endorsement in the primary, saying that Mr. Cuomo had failed on the issue of ethics reform.

One of the largest confrontations has been with public-employee unions, which have been upset with Mr. Cuomo over several issues, including his actions to cap the annual growth of property taxes and to reduce pension benefits for newly hired public employees.

“I have no doubt he’ll win the election,” said Danny Donohue, the president of the Civil Service Employees Association, the largest union of state workers. “The question was posed to me: ‘Well, does he get your endorsement?’ Very honestly, at this point, he hasn’t earned it.”

Another large union of state workers, the Public Employees Federation, went further, giving its endorsement to Ms. Teachout. Unions representing public workers, as well as the statewide teachers’ union, also blocked the statewide A.F.L.-C.I.O. from giving its backing to Mr. Cuomo, a move that could raise questions in a Democratic primary if he were ever to run for president.

“We have a legitimate difference of opinion — we did for the past four years; my guess is we will for the next four years,” Mr. Cuomo told reporters last month, referring to the teachers’ union and the largest union of state workers.

Still, Mr. Cuomo’s supporters include several of the state’s most politically potent unions, like those representing health care workers, hotel workers and building-services employees.

Unions with an agenda in Albany have more reason than individual activists to act pragmatically, and Mr. Cuomo’s administration has taken steps that have benefited some of them: He required that the developers of the state’s new casinos reach agreements with labor unions, and also championed a wage floor for home-care workers.

“This is the first governor we haven’t gotten into a fight with in a long time,” said Kevin Finnegan, the political director for 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East.

Mr. Cuomo’s relationship with construction unions also remains strong. “He’s lived up to all the expectations,” said Gary LaBarbera, the president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, who praised him for pushing ahead on infrastructure projects.

Still, some of Mr. Cuomo’s backers say that even as they support the governor’s re-election bid, they are trying to prod him to prioritize some of their favored causes.

Héctor J. Figueroa, the president of Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, which represents building workers, said Mr. Cuomo “could have been far more vocal” in support of legislation that would provide state tuition aid to students who are undocumented immigrants, a proposal called the Dream Act.

“When an incumbent is running,” he said, “the last thing that we want is simply to quietly go through a very dormant election and then not signal properly to our executive what the priorities are.”

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